He and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency were on their own; he had not dared to trust Government House or even Scotland Yard. Lomas already owned half the cops on New Providence Island, and God knew how many here. If the kidnapping failed, he and Romeo and the agents could end the day in a Nassau jail.

It had taken a year for Hoagie to get Rico Lomas off his island, onto Whiskey Cay. Now a private twin-engine Beechcraft Baron was waiting to kidnap him at the Whiskey Cay airstrip, chartered by the DEA out of Miami.

Hoagie had been deputized a year ago, and Romeo just last month. The two blacks working the refining vats were U.S. agents out of the Savannah office, and one held a black belt in karate.

The woman touching up the corpse was a forensic scientist from the DEA's Washington, D.C., headquarters; sent, Hoagie suspected, to the Bahamas for the sting as a reward for long and faithful service.

She was ready with two syringes, a hundred milligrams of Nembutal each, powerful enough to put Lomas and his gorilla to sleep for half the day. When they awoke, Hoagie hoped, they'd be in a Miami cell.

In the hearse outside were two more agents, ready for the trip to the airstrip.

If he could open the blasted safe...

He worked the combination again, with seventy. It failed.

"El Inglés," hissed Lomas, "qué pasa? What are you trying to do?"

"Steady, lad," muttered Hoagie. "Steady as you go."

He tried seventy-one, and the vault opened.

She'd been just sixteen years old...

He took out the plastic-wrapped package on top. He'd bought the coke as bait in Nassau three nights before, wanting to make sure it was what Lomas would bite on best; since the chances were that Lomas had been its importer, it should pass any test he had.

He moved aside to show Lomas the vault. It was stacked with plastic bags like the one in his hand, but all the rest held sugar.

He carried the sample to the lab desk. Romeo stood by the entrance to the embalming room. On the makeup table by the corpse, under some towels, lay a .38 Magnum for Romeo and .25-.20 for the forensic chemist.

The black agent, sucking on a siphon, smiled into Hoagie's eyes. Hoagie had seen him swipe with the side of his hand at a two-by-four and break it; that one needed no weapons but his fists.

Lomas nodded at Alejandro. Alejandro opened the package and tested it as before. He nodded and indicated the powder to Lomas. Lomas wet his finger, touched the coke, tasted his finger. He sniffed it delicately and nodded.

"Okay," he said affably. Hoagie took a deep breath. He was sure that Lomas planned to kill them all, today, for the quarter of a ton, and timing must be precise.